In today's world, many products are exchanged between different parties. Frequently, modern products are produced by a division of production processes. The products may be produced in one location and require further products that are produced in a different location. The required products may be produced by specialized producers and they may be procured from distributors. Furthermore, a division of sales and distribution processes may lead to additional exchanges of products.
The exchange of the products frequently renders the products anonymous. Therefore, a way of identifying the products uniquely and automatically is desirable. This may be done by using identification tags that are associated with the products. The tags may be read by a reader device and may provide, for example, a material number that uniquely specifies a product type. A product type can identify equivalent products but usually does not identify an individual product of the product type. One example for an identification tag is a printed bar code on a package of a product. The bar code can be read with an optical reader device, and the material number can be obtained from the read data. A further example is a passive radio frequency identification tag (RFID tag) that may be attached to the product or the package. The RFID tag can be read with a radio frequency identification reader device (RFID reader device). Reading the transmissible data from the RFID tag is fast and can be automated. Furthermore, the RFID tag may provide further data, such as, for example, an electronic product code identifying each product uniquely.
The exchange of products may permit the introduction of counterfeited products into production processes or sales and distribution processes. The counterfeited products are sold as authentic products but they are not authentic because they are not produced by an authentic producer. The counterfeited products can be of an inferior quality compared to authentic products. They may also be different with regards to a specific characteristic from the authentic products. Due to this, the counterfeited products can cause severe damages to a purchaser of such products. A producer of counterfeited products may not be held responsible for the damages and consequently may not take care to prevent the damages. Furthermore, the counterfeited products may damage a reputation of the authentic products and pose financial risks to the authentic producer.